Which machine vision lens provide ultra-high resolution?

Moritex machine vision lens

The image fidelity achievable from a machine vision camera is only as good as the optics you use! Many of the machine vision cameras used today utilize very small pixels, down to 1.25um. The crispness of the images are a result of the resolution of your machine vision lens, so matching the right lens to the camera sensor is extremely important. We classify the lens resolution in terms of line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm). So, what lenses can help resolve these small pixels?

First, the relationship of pixel pitch can be put in terms of lp/mm as seen in the chart to the right. Machine vision lens manufacturers today typically provide the resolving power on their data sheets to help in the lens selection and ensure your matching the lens to the image sensor. If not matched properly, image contrast will suffer.

For machine vision cameras with small pixels, the Moritex ML-M-UR “Ultra high” resolution lenses are an excellent choice with the capability of resolving pixel pitches down to 2.2um with good contrast.

Click HERE for specifications on the Moritex ML-M-UR series and request a quote

The comparison images below show the Moritex ML-M-UR series compared to a conventional lens with less resolution. As you can see in the cutout of the corner, the contrast is much higher with lenses with high resolving power.

machine vision lenses  - image comparison
Left (High resolution lens) Right (Legacy lower resolution lens)

Lens resolution typically has fall off to the edges of a lens. To maintain high contrast, Moritex has optimized the ML-M-UR series to have good resolving power to the edges of the lens.

The charts below represent the contrast (MTF) corresponding to image height (x-axis ) showing the contrast from lens center to lens edge. The X-axis represents the center starting at zero millimeters and mapping MTF to the edge (furthest right point) The ML-M-UR shown in the left chart demonstrates very good performance across the lens. (A relatively flat line is good!) As a comparison to another lens (right chart), contrast is degraded across the lens from center to edge.

Moritex ML-M-UR MTF

Aside from high resolution, The Moritex ML-M-UR series are a compact, 29mm diameter design and well suited for typical 29mm cube cameras. Additionally the lenses have an anti-vibration design with maximum acceleration to 10G’s.

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1st Vision’s sales engineers have over 100 years of combined experience to assist in your camera selection.  With a large portfolio of lenses, cables, NIC card and industrial computers, we can provide a full vision solution!

Ph:  978-474-0044  /  info@1stvision.com  / www.1stvision.com

Related Blog posts

10 key things you need to know when selecting a machine vision lens

Improper selection of the correct quality and type of machine vision lens can make your camera selection useless!

In many cases, we see customers attempting to choose a low quality lens for a camera that really needs quality optics to resolve the pixel sizes. Conversely, we also see customers trying to over specify a lens, where you simply need a lens that’s “good enough”


1st Vision has a white paper to help in the lens selection and provide valuable knowledge on various topics to make the best decisions. 

In this comprehensive white paper, you’ll learn the following

  1. Background basics on lenses and what they really do!
  2. The science in some basic formulas to calculate MAG, focal length and angular FOV
  3. What are extension rings used for?
  4. How are lenses rated?  MTF explained
  5. The myth behind “Megapixel” lens ratings
  6. How many pixels do I really need?
  7. What is the ” f# ” of a lens
  8. What does the “lens format” mean?
  9. Comparison of lens types from security to Factory Automation (FA)
  10. How to get some practical advice!

Download the White Paper

1st Vision has many other resources in our educational blogs.  Please find related links to lenses below.  

We are happy to discuss your imaging application in details  Just contact us!

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